This invention relates to the field of call centers, and more particularly, this invention relates to the field of call centers having automatic call distributors and interactive voice response units.
Calls centers that use digital switching systems have become commonplace in businesses and institutions throughout the United States and the world. Often these call systems use separate and functionally different automatic call distributor (ACD) servers and interactive voice response (IVR) servers. The ACD allows routing of calls received via a switch to a plurality of different agents, depending on the predetermined standards defined by the call center system. Examples of these standards include routing based on DNIS or ANI. Some call center systems also have skills based routing on a limited scale.
In these prior art call centers, the IVR script is separately established under one control system, generally run on a processor that is operative and associated with the IVR server. On the other hand, ACD operation is scripted and controlled via a computer and processor that are associated with the ACD, but separate from any association with the IVR server. This is a complicated prior art system, and the lack of integration among any ACD and IVR servers and components makes for complicated call center administration. Additionally, the lack of functional integration among the ACD and IVR components, especially with scripting functions, makes call center set up time consuming, and makes real time reporting of call center operation and agent efficiency difficult. Also, this type of prior art call center system makes agent evaluation and call center evaluation less reliable.
In some prior art call center systems, the user sets up call routing first, and then pushes skills into the call routing. This type of routing and associated scripting is inefficient. Also, many call center systems use proprietary report generation software packages having different prepackaged report templates that cannot be customized with standard office products, such as commercially available SQL or other database products. xe2x80x9cSnap shotxe2x80x9d reports are thus not available or reliable enough to evaluate a call center performance in any complicated call center system using IVR and ACD servers. Thus, these call center systems are not dynamic, and do not effectively provide service to customers and callers. They also do not respond quickly to changing conditions in a manner to allow adequate real time report generation and the control and tracking of calls within the call center, whether in queue or being responded to by an agent. Any custom applications also are not readily exchangeable across different platforms and are not scalable for different solutions and thus, cannot meet diverse current and future call center demands.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method and system of collecting and reporting information about a call center for use by a remote supervisor.
A method and call center system are disclosed for collecting and reporting information by the call center for use by a supervisor. A supervisor computer is connected to an automatic call distributor (ACD) server and a structured query language (SQL) server having an associated historical database for call center statistics, which are included as part of the call center having a plurality of agents for receiving incoming calls. At predetermined time intervals, status data relating to real time status changes of agents and incoming calls are forwarded from the ACD server to the supervisor. The received status data is processed at the supervisor computer and real time reports are displayed for supervisor monitoring of the call center and agent statistics. At predetermined time intervals, statistical data related to agents and call center operation is forwarded from the SQL server and associated historical database to the supervisor, which is processed within the supervisor computer to obtain historical reports of call center operation.
In another aspect of the present invention, the real time reports comprise real time reports of calls answered, calls abandoned, talk times, agent status, calls in queue or agents in queue. The step of displaying the real time reports for viewing the performance of groups of agents can be categorized by teams of agents, agents, DNIS, or agent skill. The time intervals for forwarding status data from the ACD servers can be about three seconds. The supervisor computer can include a monitor for displaying the real time reports on a graphical user interface.
The supervisor computer can also include a monitor for displaying a graphical user interface used for controlling the processing of status data and controlling the display of real time reports. In one aspect of the present invention, graphical user interface includes an ACD states toolbar having colors for ACD states that are displayed within various real time reports. The supervisor computer can also filter the retrieved historical data for presenting selected statistics of agent and call center operation. The historical reports can be displayed concerning agent productivity, agent productivity per hour, agent time sheet, call statistics/history, calls per hour for 15 minutes, disposition code, or calls by agent per hour. Statistical data from the SQL server can be forwarded at about 15 minute time intervals.
A call center system is also disclosed and includes a call center switch for receiving incoming calls from a communications network. A plurality of agents receive incoming calls that have been routed to respective agents. An automatic call distributor (ACD) server is connected to the call center switch for routing calls to the plurality of agents. The supervisor computer is connected via a TCP/IP connection to the ACD server for receiving at predetermined time intervals status data relating to real time status changes of agents and incoming calls. The supervisor computer can include a supervisor application for processing the received data and displaying real time reports to enable supervisor monitoring of call center agent statistics.